Yup, these are not new. I read Gleick’s “The Information” quite some time ago, and halfway read “Chaos” as well but didn’t get the chance to finish it until just recently. Now I’ve finally finished Chaos as well, and enjoyed it greatly.

The two books I’ve read of him so far both have this interesting style of writing. He chooses a monster of a topic, and then goes about describing everything there is to know about it in a spherical fashion. He talks about the whole history of the topic, every important development that makes the topic what it is today, and he really likes to go deep into the lives of people who played a role in it. Scientists, researchers… he likes to talk about their lives, their eccentric habits, biographical bits that you may just not find in your standard biography book. His books as a result are quite fun to read…